Every few weeks, FanHouse will offer a writer's opinion on the current NBA MVP Rankings. This time, Tom Ziller gives his top 20 through the season's first four weeks, as well as an assessment of the multitude of rookie point guards.
The Atlanta Hawks find themselves at the top of our rankings this week, thanks to a five-game winning streak against some strong competition -- a gritty overtime win over the Blazers and a road win in Boston were both impressive. Now, let's see if they can avoid the top-spot-jinx on Wednesday night, when they'll host Miami in a rematch of last year's first round playoff series. As for the other 29 teams? Read on to see how they stacked up.
Some people never learn. D.J. Mbenga may be one of them.
Now, D.J. is a good guy and he makes a decent living as the backup center for world champion Los Angeles Lakers, but there's a reason he's a backup center. Besides a talent deficiency, Mbenga is not quick and therefore slow to rotate on help defense and recover on pick-and-rolls.
This often puts him in an awkward position, that position being Mbenga on a poster on his keister.
Such was the case again Friday when Nuggets rookie Ty Lawson went medieval on Mbenga.
(The pair of pliers and the blowtorch after the jump.)
DENVER -- Final four week turned into a flop of finalists.
Meetings of last season's conference finalists got started Wednesday when Cleveland took a huge lead and clobbered defending East champion Orlando 102-93. An even bigger dismantling occurred Friday night at the Pepsi Center.
The way the Nuggets demolished the Lakers, you'd have thought they tried to smuggle coke into the building.
The Nuggets got some revenge against the defending West and NBA champions 105-79. It wasn't even that close.
"Hopefully, this is a big message, not just to the Lakers but to the whole NBA. We're a legit team,'' said Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, who scored a game-high 25 points and outscored Lakers star Kobe Bryant 18-0 in the second half (no, that's not a misprint).
While bound for free agency in the summer of 2004, the Lakers star openly spoke about teams he might consider. But Bryant now says Cleveland star LeBron James is making the right decision by deciding earlier this week to stop talking about his impending free agency.
"He doesn't need to,'' Bryant said in an interview with FanHouse while in Denver for Friday's 105-79 loss to the Nuggets. "He did the right thing by not talking about it. I mean, what can you say?''
DENVER -- Andrew Bynum was talking to his brother early this week when he got the news.
Amare Stoudemire, despite being Phoenix's starting power forward, was listed on the All-Star ballot at center for the Western Conference. That happens to be the same position played by the Lakers' Bynum, and many had considered him the favorite to be the starter after Houston's Yao Ming was lost for the season due to injury and Shaquille O'Neal was traded from Phoenix to Cleveland of the East.
"I was definitely surprised,'' Bynum said in an interview with FanHouse about Stoudemire being listed at center even though he's started every game this season at forward, with Channing Frye having opened at center for the Suns.
The Heat drew mostly guffaws when it retired the jersey of Michael Jordan, who never played one second for the franchise. Heat prez Pat Riley suggested it was a move to honor the game's greatest player, but most saw it as a silly bit of marketing showmanship.
MJ attended Thursday's Heat-Cavaliers game with Riley -- the TNT broadcast crew noted that Scottie Pippen also sat courtside, and suggested it might have been some subliminal "pair with Dwyane Wade!" messaging to LeBron James. MJ's presence made the game a bit more weird, and led to a rare political statement from LeBron: he thinks players should stop wearing No. 23 out of deference to His Airness, and he plans to lead the charge by switching to No. 6 next season.
Cleveland and Miami squared off Thursday night, and while the story leading up to the game was the unfathomably awesome possibility of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James playing on the same team, the story (at least microcosmically) coming out of the game is the following dunk that Wade threw down on Anderson "Flopsy" Varejao.
ORLANDO -- If Dwight Howard wants to keep that Superman moniker -- if he wants to deliver on his promise to bring an NBA title to Orlando -- he better turn his game up another notch real soon.
Playing Shaquille O'Neal -- who is well past his prime and 14 years older -- to an uninspired standstill like he did Wednesday night won't get his team anywhere close to the Finals again.
He knows it. And his coach certainly does, too. The Defensive Player of the Year and defending rebounding champion has been rather pedestrian lately.
ORLANDO -- Mike Brown made like an emcee for a lounge act.
With his pregame interview Wednesday night running out of steam, the Cleveland coach suddenly saw his point guard, Mo Williams, walk by. Brown yelled for Williams to come over and say a few words to the assembled media.
Williams rolled out some early material about how his alma mater, Alabama, was going to continue to do some damage on the gridiron. Then he got to the good stuff.
"You all ready for a show tonight?'' he said. "Because I'm going to give you all one tonight.''
NBA 
DENVER -- Final four week turned into a flop of finalists.
DENVER -- Do as I say and not as I do.
DENVER -- 
The 
Cleveland and Miami squared off Thursday night, and while the story leading up to the game was the unfathomably awesome possibility of 
ORLANDO -- 
